Stuck on CBC
CBC Toronto has gone sticker crazy. You know those giant, peel-off vinyl graphics you see everywhere these days? Well, CBC has bought in.
It seems every flat surface of the Broadcasting Centre, inside and out, is in the process of being tarted up with giant ads sporting CBC personalities and shows. The atrium looks like the hood of a NASCAR vehicle. Even the newsroom is getting plastered - though for all those interior uses, I'm not quite sure who we're supposed to be advertising to. Ourselves?
A few theories:Â Perhaps vinyl is suddenly cheap. Maybe it's good old fashioned end-of-fiscal spending, or new fiscal. Or perhaps we can't afford billboards anymore. Or we're trying to stay one step ahead of Rami Tabello.
With as many as 800 people heading out the door, perhaps temporary promotions are considered wise. Conversely, there's a rumour that if you make it onto a sticker, your job is safe - though that didn't help Steven and Chris.
With the peel-off craze nearing its peak, I can just tell what's coming next: Rex Murphy Fatheads!
At least they aren't scratch 'n sniff.
Check out a sampling of the plasterings here - bigger versions on Flickr, with comments.
All of this has happened before
At times like this, I like to glance over at this photocopy I found during my archival work.
Almost exactly 60 years ago.
Props from the fallen
This week saw the bittersweet bazaar known as the Royal Canadian Air Farce props & wardrobe sale. After 35 years on CBC Radio and Television, the Air Farce took its final flight.
 It's the end of an era, not just for the show but because it was one of the few A&E TV shows to still tape in the Toronto CBC building, using the last of the once-great horde of props and costumes built by generations of CBC craftspeople. Those days are over, and they aren't coming back. (See previous posts about the closing of the Design Department, and the subsequent sell-off.)
But it makes for one hell of a yard sale!
For two days, eager staffers were invited to pick over the remains of the Farce's unique creations. There are now strange objects scattered across cubicles on every floor.
The props area had coffins, statues, a bomb, rubber chickens and more, to say nothing of rather nice chairs, lamps and picture frames. In wardrobe, you could get labcoats, capes, hockey sweaters, muumuus, a Marg Delahunty costume and about a thousand ties (which eventually sold for a buck each.) Plus everyday sweaters, suits and pants - though every pair of pants I tried on were of Roger Abbott proportions - fit me loosely at the waist but barely reached my calves. Looked like knickers.
Still, I'm a sucker for weird junk, especially if it's a part of history. In addition to the fake switches and books pictured above, here's what I walked away with:
Impules buy - for $1 - a board game called "Separatist Careers"... you can even find the original skit online on the Air Farce site.
"Just be sure to avoid the Parizeau card, or you go home a loser." Priceless! And check out the Lucien Bouchard playing piece:
And for my dollar, they threw in a free box of Lloyd Robertson Hair Rinse for News Anchors:
But the crowning purchase - at a whopping $15 - was this Greek bust:
I think it's Pericles, but I'm not sure. He's currently backfilling for our encoder, who was sick that day.
Looking through that stuff was a riot, tempered slightly by the observation that the people selling off the wardrobe collection were a soon-to-be-unemployed seamstress and a scriptwriter.
If only I had bought the fake bomb, though! That would have been... never mind.
Shredding, old school
Last week the folks in the offices beside mine moved out, now occupying new digs on the ninth floor of the Toronto CBC building.
They took with them the paper shredder, but I was able to find an old one - a really old one - amid the rubble of old SCSI cards, 5 1/4" disks and skeletons of BASIC programmers.
Here's the shredder:
Handsome! But did you catch the brand name?
Yep, "Watergate - top secret". Someone in the manufacturing world obviously has a sense of humour!
Seemed like an odd omen for Inauguration Day, though. In fact, my very first memory of television is sitting down with my parents to watch Richard Nixon depart the Whitehouse. "He was a very bad man, and now he has to go away," my mom told me.
But I was four, so what I heard was, "He lied, so now he gets to ride in a helicopter!"
Amazing, then, to watch the crowds gather in the CBC atrium to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. If you want a better taste of history, please check out the new topic we posted on the CBC Digital Archives: Swearing In: U.S. Presidential Inaugurations - we've got clips of speeches from FDR right through to Dubya.
CBC beer!
To hell with all those corporate warnings about reining in spending, cancelling holiday parties and making sure the Minister of Heritage doesn't see anyone enjoying themselves. Let's crack open a few of these, and get the party started:
Hell, this time last year CBC had its own bar! (Sadly empty ever since.) Unfortunately this CBC Beer has nothing to do with us - it was spotted by my friend Chris Macdonald in his various travels (here's another one he found, also in Carolina.) Lord knows we could use a couple now, though.
Identical Twins #7: Everybody loves Aamer
Today is the first episode of The Point, a new program on CBC Radio 1 that promises to be "a lively, fast paced, sometimes provocative and always entertaining array of conversation, debate and good old fashioned water cooler chat." I'm listening to it now on CBC's live streaming. So far, so good.
As you'll see all over CBC.ca today, the host of The Point ("point people", as they say on the show) is Aamer Haleem. A colleague pointed out that he looks quite a bit like Ray Romano:
Do you see it? I suspect it's just that particular picture, but still.
The other CBC
My friend Chris MacDonald, he of The Business Ethics Blog, was visiting Duke University a few days ago and spotted this other CBC sig, which he snapped and sent my way:
Chris wonders if it's merely coincidence that the other CBC is a psychiatric institute? There are certainly times when people in both places "face problems that require professional evaluation, counseling or other therapy. " I smell a partnership.
Of course there are many other CBC's than just Canada's public broadcaster. I certainly wouldn't mind a work exchange with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, and respect the Children's Book Council. And if you check Wikipedia's CBCs you'll find everything from Cipher Block Chaining to the Christmas Bird Count to the Christian Brothers College. Can't say I'm a huge fan of Claw Boys Claw, though. I'll stick with my CBC after all.
A band that should have existed
To illustrate the CBC Digital Archives topic on Draft Dodgers, we found this great image of U.S. Army deserters on the always impressive Library and Archives Canada site search. But! Wouldn't this have made a great band, and album cover?
If the image were square I'd print it as is. "Draft Dodgers" would be a great band name, and Seeking Sanctuary is a pretty good album title. The first track and hit single would have to be Hell No. Who do you think plays what instrument?
Von Trapp Shooting
Got a corporate e-mail today with a delicious subject line:
Subject: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? shooting at CBC Toronto
Reading on, it's about the reality show clogging up our elevators again. But I read this subject line and thought of possible answers: By calling the cops? Hiding under your desk? Wearing a bulletproof vest? Man! Maria shooting at CBC really could be dangerous!
gor[b] to iO!
To: iO! Staff
From: Paul Gorbould
Subject: gor[b]! gor[b]! gor[b]! gor[b]! gor[b]!
I have published something on my blog. Please go to my blog to see what I blogged.
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